This invention is concerned with improvements relating to the treatment of meat. The term meat is used herein generically as including animal meat (e.g. beef, lamb, pork, poultry) but excludes fish.
In the catering industry it is highly desirable to provide meat in the form of portions (conventionally termed "steaks") of predetermined size, i.e. having a predetermined cross-sectional area and thickness, to enable the portions to be cooked automatically, and to be charged for at a standard rate.
Conventionally steaks are provided by hand slicing a piece of meat or whole muscle across the grain: however for volume production it is in practical terms impossible to do this economically.
Suggestions have been made to provide blocks of meat in a desired form. For example, portions of meat may be minced and extruded at a temperature in the vicinity of freezing point (e.g. 0.degree. to minus 4.degree. C.) in the form of a cylinder, which may then be sliced. The main disadvantage of this is that the texture of the reconstituted meat is different from that of a conventional steak, and this is readily apparent to a consumer.
Suggestions have been made for the processing of fish, involving the random arrangement of fillets in a container, freezing and then compressing the frozen fillets to a desired shape, which may subsequently be cut into portions (see for example U.S. Pat Nos. 4,474,823 and 3,211,086). However it has been found impossible to apply these known techniques to meat products without destroying the texture and/or flavour of the meat.
It is one of the various objects of this invention to provide for the provision of portions of meat of regular, predetermined size without any significant disruption to the structure of the meat.